“No to the holding company. » “Merger = idiot trap. » “No to the destruction of public broadcasting! » Signs hastily cobbled together on pieces of cardboard and multicolored union flags added, Thursday, May 23, to the chaos of traffic jams and crowded terraces on Place Colette, in Paris.
Despite the concern and dismay aroused by the merger-absorption project supposed to bring together France Télévisions, Radio France, France Médias Monde and the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), a certain relief was perceptible among the several hundred employees gathered on the other side of the courtyard bristling with the columns of Buren, which adjoins the Ministry of Culture. Not only did the scale of the mobilization – historic at Radio France and France Médias Monde, more modest at France Télévisions – bring balm to the hearts of the strikers also mobilized in Caen, Toulouse and Amiens, but the news of the postponement of the debates in session plenary session, scheduled for the National Assembly on Thursday May 23 and Friday May 24, had just fallen.
“It’s a first victory”, Sophie Binet immediately rejoiced at the microphone of a weak sound system. For the general secretary of the CGT, the decision to postpone the examination of the bill owes nothing to a possible “burn-out of MPs”but everything by a less and less certain majority. “I hope that this postponement will be sine die”adds honorary senator David Assouline (Socialist Party), dismayed by the return to the debates of “this cream pie of holding or merger while many other dangers weigh on public broadcasting”, to begin that of its financing.
Doing pedagogy
While an INA delegation poses for a souvenir photo (“an INacceptable reform”proclaim their slogan), MP Olivier Serva (Libertés, independents, overseas and territories) assures employees of the support of his group in the National Assembly, as Sophie Taillé-Polian did a few moments earlier on behalf from the Ecologistes-Nupes group.
This postponement “will allow us to have a little more time to make the issues of this reform understood, by informing listeners and raising awareness among deputies”, explains Bertrand Durand, CGT union delegate to Radio France. Do pedagogy, but from what? “It’s total confusion, we still don’t know if we should be in the holding company or elsewhere, if we join another editorial team, if the brand disappears”list Julien Fanciulli, presenter at France 24, regretting that France Médias Monde is at the heart of a standoff between the group’s two supervising ministries, the Quai d’Orsay and Rue de Valois.
You have 50.15% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.